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Title: Superimpose
Cost: .99
Platform: iOS or Android

There are a lot of photo editing apps available. But, sometimes I find that they are confusing to use because they offer a wide assortment of tools for accomplishing a variety of tasks. With Superimpose that's not the case. This app gives users the chance to do one thing - superimpose one image on to another. And, it makes it pretty easy to do that without adding lots of extra bells and whistles.

The basic way that it works is that a user selects a background image. Then selects a foreground image. And then marries the two by creating a mask for the foreground image and using filters to blend things together as much as desired.

The 10 minute screencast below shows you the basics of how Superimpose works. You can then read on to learn about even more features and possibilities.


As briefly shown in the video, along with the "smart brush" that erases unwanted parts of an image, there are other tools that can enhance the photo that you want to superimpose. This includes creating gradients and superimposing text over an image. Filters allow users to change hue and saturation as well as add special photo effects to the superimposed image.

The YALSA "Future of Library Services for and with Teens: A Call to Action" report highlights the importance of supporting digital and media literacies as a part of 21st century library service. Using Superimpose with and for teens, and giving teens the chance to learn about this app, will help teens to achieve key skills in these areas.

The 99 cent price tag makes it within reach for many libraries. Give it a try.

Have a suggestion for an App of the Week? Let us know. And don't forget to check our App of the Week archive for more great tools.

Title: Apple News
Cost: Free with iOS update
Platform: iOS 9

Think RSS is dead? Maybe it's really just hiding. Like Flipboard, the Apple News app delivered as part of the iOS 9 update earlier this month focuses on the very thing missing from earlier feedreaders: the aesthetic.

As part of the roll-out, Apple is offering development tools in the form of Apple News Format to inspire digital journalists to embed videos, animations, and photo galleries specifically for this application. And the channels of well-designed sites are especially attractive within this interface.

As with RSS readers, when you first launch Apple News, you can select from among legacy and online media outlets to add to your feed. You can follow particular sites (they become your "favorites") or browse by subject ("explore"), and search for breaking stories by keyword. The "channels" appear to be vetted through the application rather than simply allowing someone to pull in any site with a feed (like this blog).

Apple News is unapologetic about helping you construct a filter bubble, asserting that the more you read, the better the news will get at understanding your interests, since they will personalize the stories delivered to your screen based on your behavior. You can speed up the process  by assigning heart icons, a mechanism that prompts Apple to recommend stories its considers similar. Conceptually related stories with applicable keywords are found at the bottom of many articles.

The other mechanisms built into News are familiar from other iOS apps. You can bookmark stories for later offline reading,share stories via connected social media channels, and, if you use Apple News on multiple devices, you can sync your preferences via iCloud.

When Apple News was announced, some pundits theorized the de-coupling of editorial and advertising content would be complete. But while some metered and paywalled sources exist within the Apple News channels, many require logins for full access. With Apple scrambling to differentiate good advertising from bad advertising and pulling ad blocking apps, the evolving news landscape remains interesting.

Have a suggestion for an App of the Week? Let us know. And don't forget to check our App of the Week archive for more great tools.

Title: Paper
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free with in-app purchases available

It's been at least a couple of years since FiftyThree's Paper app originally launched. The latest update brings the app to the iPhone and adds some new features, functionality, and updates. As a result the app is now, even more than it was before, a tool that teens and library staff will want to consider for their arsenal of creative thinking, note-taking, and designing tools.

Watch the 14.5 minute screencast below to see a brief overview of how the app works and read the rest of this post after that screencast to find out a bit more.


As the screencast shows, the Paper app makes it easy to write notes, to create drawings, and to save and caption photos. All of these can also be combined so that drawings can be added to images and notes can be added to drawings. With each iteration of Paper the tool becomes more and more powerful as something for teens and others to use.

How might teens and library staff that work with them use Paper:

• As a tool for visual note taking. For some students using drawings and sketches as a way to take notes is much more effective than traditional text note taking. Paper can help with that visual note taking. If you want to learn more about visual note taking there's a great post on Sketchnoting to check out.
• For creating drawings when learning about visual arts. Learn how the Guggenheim Museum used Paper for this purpose.
• As a way to create to-do lists for projects, homework, research, and more. Because the app makes it so easy to create lists and save what's created into folders, it's easy to create a collection of resources for a specific purpose. For example, a teen might create a Paper space/folder called App Project and in it save sketches of potential app designs, lists of URLS for learning how to code apps, to do lists for building an app or website, and more.
• To use as a visual drawing tool during a brainstorming session. For example, as a part of a service learning project teens might brainstorm various outcomes of their project. In that brainstorming the teens could use Paper to visually diagram their ideas and plans.
• As a tool to expand digital and visual literacies. In the YALSA Future of Library Service for and with Teens: A Call to Action report, the importance of supporting acquisition of media literacy for teens is highlighted as a priority for libraries. Because of the combination of tools that Paper provides, it has great potential for helping teens to develop skills in these areas.

Don't miss the Paper blog - The Open Studio to learn more about the various ways you and teens might use the app. Also, as noted in the screencast, make sure to check-out the tips available within the app. There's lots more possible then is highlighted here.

Title: ReBoard
Platform: iOS
Cost: $1.99 plus in app purchases

Over the past few months I've tried out a lot of keyboards for my iOS devices. There are keyboards that allow me to type by using the touch screen instead of the keyboard and keyboards that allow me to add videos and gifs to documents quickly. There is even a dog image keyboard. Most recently I tried ReBoard and it's the one I think I will probably stick with.

Watch the 13.5 minute screencast below to learn how ReBoard works and you can read more about it  below the video.


The heart of ReBoard is that it brings multi-tasking to the iOS keyboard. Once you have ReBoard setup on your device you can use it for any of the writing that you do whether it's a document, a note, a text message, a Tweet, a Facebook post, or an email. No longer do you have to leave the email, or document, or Tweet you are writing in order to look something up on the web or find a file in your Dropbox.

Teens, teachers, and library staff using ReBoard may think of it as another tool for research note-taking as it's really useful to easily be able to search the web for information on a topic and then quote that information or refer to that information in what you are writing. I like it as a way to find, annotate, and curate links and content on my device when using Google Docs on my iPad. It's also very nice to be able to look up a word or do some quick math right inside what I'm working on.

ReBoard does have a small ($1.99) price tag in order to use the basic features - Wikipedia, YouTube, image search, dictionary, etc. And another small ($.99) price tag to add some extras - Dropbox for example. However, if you think the timesaving that can come with using ReBoard will be useful to you and the teens you work with and for, then I think you'll decide that the minimal costs are well worth it.

Title: Giphy Cam
Platform: iOS
Cost: Free

GIFs are a fun part of online communication. Whether shared through a text message or on your Tumblr, GIFs can help to share your emotional state or just make the reader laugh. But, most GIF fans just find their GIFs online, they don’t create them. Giphy Cam is an app that can change all of that. From the team at Giphy, a platform for finding and sharing GIFs, this iOS app uses your device’s camera to let you create your own GIFs.

With the app, you can opt to either film a short looping GIF by holding your finger on the red button or a five frame “burst” for a shorter GIF by tapping the button. When you choose either option, you can also select from a range of special features that can be added to your GIF. These features include filters, backgrounds, animations, overlays, and what may be the creepiest rabbit mask I have ever seen. All of them help to add additional meaning and personality to your videos to make for a more dynamic GIF.

Once you are happy with your GIF creation, Giphy Cam makes it easy to share the GIF. The app includes integration with messaging features on your device, Twitter, Instagram, email, and other apps on your device. You can also decide to instead save your GIF to your device for later use. Overall, Giphy Cam makes it just as easy to create a GIF as it is to take a selfie. That makes this app a great tool for your library’s outreach efforts or for teens at your library who love to use their devices to take and share photos and videos.

Title: Crop
Cost: Free, with $ 1 in-app purchase to remove ads and maintain aspect ratio
Platform: iOS

Sometimes an app is so simple, but works so well, it's hard to imagine how you would get along without it. For me, one of those is Crop by Green Mango Systems.

Whether it's focusing on the content of a screen-captured Instagram post or creating a quick thumbnail for an avatar, there are many occasions when you'll want to remove the bulk of an image or rotate it on the fly. You simply select the image, use the eight points of the image canvas to determine the size you want, and you can keep finessing things until you hit "Save." And unlike the crop option within the iOS photo roll, Crop saves your creation as a new file, so you don't loose the original.

In a digital photography workshop at our state edtech conference this summer, the presenter, Leslie Fisher, emphasized taking pictures from where you stood and cropping them instead of using the digital zoom feature in your device camera. She said that results in less degradation of the image quality. Crop is super-useful for anyone adopting that sort of digital photography workflow.

Title: Padlet
Platform: iOS (Android coming soon)
Cost: Free with paid versions with extra features for schools, businesses, and personal use

Padlet is a web-based tool that's been available for a few years. Recently an iPad app launched which makes it easy for libraries working with and for teens to use the tool in a variety of ways.

As with the web-based tool, the Padlet app is a good way to create walls of content. The content might be a curated list of resources - including audio, video, websites, Google Docs, images, and more - that a teen is going to use in a presentation. It, might be a wall where teens brainstorm together and collaborate on ideas for a new project. Or, it could be a place where library staff working with and for teens collect resources of interest to help them provide high-quality service to the age group.

The slideshow below takes you through the basics of using Padlet, adding content, applying settings, and inviting collaborators.

Padlet iPad App - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

New Padlets can be created in the app by selecting the "New Padlet" link. Then to add content all a user needs to do is to either double-tap on the screen or tap on the + at the bottom of the screen. When adding new content it's possible to add a title, a description, and then a link to the content (if web-based resources are being used.) I found that the touch-screen features were not as easy to use as I would have liked. Sometimes a double-tap didn't open up the content window and sometimes using my fingers to drag an item on the wall to a different location - as one is supposed to be able to do - didn't work as easily as it should.

All of the basic features of the web-based version of Padlet are available including changing the wall background and layout, adding notifications when someone adds to a wall (if collaborators are taking part in a Padlet project), adding collaborators, and sharing a Padlet for website or social media integration.

Using Padlet with teens who have access to tablets is a great way to give them opportunities to collaborate on content development and brainstorming. It's also a great way for teens to curate content for projects of academic or personal interest. The fact that it's now available as an app means that teens, who have access to tablets, will have more opportunities to use the tool.

If you or the teens you work for and with are already Padlet web users using the iPad app will be something that you can add to your arsenal of resources. If you haven't yet used Padlet for or with the teens you work with, give it a try.

Title: Status Board
Platform: iOS 8.4 or later
Cost: Free with in-app purchases available

Status Board is an app that's been around for a few years but I just learned about it recently. I think it has some interesting possible uses for teens putting together infographic like presentations and for library staff and educators who work with adolescents.

The idea behind Status Board is to create Boards that aggregate information with a particular focus. It's possible to create Boards that show personal information such as email, weather, calendar, RSS feeds, etc. However, that's not really so unique as it's possible to create similar kinds of screens of aggregated information with other tools.

What does make Status Board potentially useful for those working for and with teens, is the ability to create Boards that show data on a particular topic. The data can be integrated with text and web-based content to provide opportunities to display from where information was gathered, as well as the data/information itself. The images below show the two-types of boards that I created as examples.





The app interface isn't as intuitive or as responsive as I would have liked, however once you've figured out the basics it is pretty easy to use. To start a new Status Board you tap on the top left settings icon and then tap on edit boards. On the right of the next screen is a + sign that is what you next tap on to create a new Board.

Once you've started a Board you can add widgets by dragging from the bottom into the Board area. The widgets can be moved around and sized to fit the Board as you would like. The basic widgets (for things like RSS feeds, Twitter, email, weather, and so on) are free and widgets that allow users to add their own data and content cost $9.99 (as an in-app purchase package).

It's probably worth purchasing the 6 add-on widgets, especially if you think this app is something you might use either to create data-based presentations for your own work, or for teens to use as a part of their own informal and formal learning data gathering and presentations. There's a lot you can do with the data widgets - for example tables and graphs - and these could be an opportunity for teens to develop 21st century visual and media literacy skills as well as presentation and critical thinking skills.

To change a widget's content from its default all you or the teens you work with need to do is to tap on it and enter in the requested information. If adding your own data, you can either link to a CSV file that is available in Dropbox or link to raw data available on the web.




Status Board is definitely something to look into as tool for collecting, analyzing and presenting data and information of a variety of types.

Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know.  And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog's App of the Week Archive.

Title: Cardboard
Platform: Android and iOS
Cost: Free

It's more than a high-tech Viewmaster. Google Cardboard that takes advantage of the gyroscope in your phone to replicate 365 degree, stereoscopic viewing. Cardboard itself is an app which helps you get started, calibrate your device, and learn to manipulate the navigation and controls. A whole stable of apps and games build upon the Cardboard concept, but the populist VR trend is so new that the content is very uneven. Even in Google's demo, the international capitals captured through Street View pale next to the underwater landscape of the Great Barrier Reef.

Google Cardboard is truly low-barrier. It works as well with Android as with iOS, so more students can use it, manufactured Cardboard cases are inexpensive and you can download a kit to create your own headset.

Some of the apps viewed through the Cardboard headset offer the most generational kinesthetic gaming improvement since the Wii. I use Cardboard to play Debris Defrag, what is essentially an immersive version of Asteroids that makes having a space gun seem absolutely fantastic. The virtual reality experience itself is leaps and bounds beyond holding your phone at arm's length to view a HistoryPin photo screen or an Aurasma layer.

All those online video watchers can use Cardboard as another wrinkle to their experience. I spent a lot of time looking at standard video through Cardboard Viewers, but it was kind of like watching 2D television on a 3D television set, the effect was minimal. It seems to work more as a way to experience high concept video and games that others have created. I had a much better experience exploring the products posted by savvy marketers capitalizing on the nature of the medium. The North Face has a fun video. For teens waiting on the Oculus Rift, Cardboard is a fun stopgap.

Our App of the Week Archive features more great apps. Got a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know.

Name: Let’s Go Rocket
Platform: iOS
Price: Free

I’m always on the look out for fun new games whether they are for my computer or my mobile device, so when I ran across Let’s Go Rocket I was quick to check it out. This free iOS game is very simple. You are given a rocket and you have to navigate it through a series of obstacles. You can vary the speed of your rocket by either touching it to speed up or letting go of it to slow it down. Sounds simple, right? However, there are a lot of additional details that make this game quite complicated. First, you have to ensure that your rocket moves fast enough that it doesn’t drift off of the bottom of your screen. If it does, you lose. Moreover, you can’t move side to side at all, so avoiding obstacles is not as easy as it might first seem. And, there are a lot of different types of obstacles that will keep you on your toes. Along the way, you also encounter gems to gather and aliens to pick up along the way. To add to the fun, you can choose which rocket you would like to use when you first start the game and there are options to buy or unlock other rockets as you go along.

Though Let’s Go Rocket is fairly simple, I have found it very enjoyable and almost frustratingly difficult. Even when I know exactly what my objective is, the app manages to make achieving it difficult with the sensitivity of the controls and the limited range of motion for the rocket. The app indicates your best result on the screen as a sort of “finish line” that you can cross, which is a nice way to keep track of your progress and motivate yourself to keep pushing further. The artwork in the app is very cute featuring not only an array of rockets, but also adorable aliens and great backgrounds that make the game very engaging.

Let’s Go Rocket is a good combination of simple controls, fun artwork and difficult gameplay elements. This makes it a nice option for both those who like casual games and those who want a bit more difficulty in their games. Though the app does include additional features that can be purchased, it can be played without these add-ons, meaning that it is a nice free option to recommend to teens at your library.

Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know. And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog's App of the Week Archive.

Title: Last Voyage
Cost: $1.99; currently on sale for $0.99
Platform: iOS 7.0 or later

Last Voyage, by Semidome Inc., is an abstract puzzle game inspired by science fiction movies. It features hypnotic, minimalist graphics that often consist of simple geometric shapes; but also more cinematic scenes that pay homage to icons like the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Black, white, and red are the dominant colors throughout, with occasional surprise appearances by blue and green. The pulsing, 40-minute original soundtrack adds immensely to the experience.

Told in five chapters that can be played individually, or moved through in order, it has been compared to other cinematic games such as Monument Valley and Lost Sounds. While Last Voyage doesn't present a traditional narrative, the idea that you are embarking on a mind-bending journey through the depths of space is strong and ever-present. Each player is free to imagine their own reason for the journey, and their own interpretation for each chapter.

The game chapters alternate between puzzle challenges and challenges that test the speed and accuracy of your thumbs. The puzzles in Chapter1: Astral and Chapter 3: Mind are presented with no instructions; half of the fun was in figuring out the key to solving each one. I thought that these might not be much fun once I knew what I needed to do to solve them, but revisiting Astral a few days later, I discovered that several were just as challenging the second time around. Getting through some of the harder ones in half the time as before was also somewhat gratifying.

The other chapters, the ones that require quick thumbs, offer minimal instructions. Even with these, however, it took a long time for me to pass Chapter 2: Void. First I had to train my thumbs to swipe in the right direction. After failing many, many times in the early stages of the game; I found that timing became even more important during the later stages. I had to fail many more times before finally making it all the way through. The soundtrack helped to keep my going, though. During this chapter, it sounded to me like the perfect accompaniment for plunging through a wormhole, and I really wanted to see what lay on the other side.

This is a game that I would enthusiastically recommend to all young fans of puzzle games, science fiction, electronic music and any gamers with a big imagination.

Have a suggestion for a featured App of the Week? Let us know. And don't forget to check out more great apps in our archive.

Title: PhotoMath
Platform: iOS and Android
Cost: Free

From WordLens (now part of Google Translate) to Invisibility 3D, apps which use the camera as an input tool to harness machine intelligence always interest me. When one such app, PhotoMath hit the top of the download charts last year, there was some minor outcry among educators. Would students use the app to cheat? But while the PhotoMath app reads and solves mathematical problems by using the camera of your phone and tablet in real time, it is far from the scourge of math teachers. Like Wolfram Alpha, it is a nice tool to have on hand when you can't remember enough math to help students with their work.

Within the app with an active camera, you can manipulate the size of the datawell to pick up the whole of more complicated questions, and the app solves advanced math problems including quadratic equations and inequalities. The app goes beyond solutions, anticipating the admonition to "show your work." A red button opens the step-by-step process for doing just that.

You can flag incorrect answers, and updates build upon the errata to produce a more robust tool.

The app has its limitations. It can only scan printed text, so it won't work on a teacher's handwritten equations. And, given the push towards more constructivist assignments and the intuitive mathematical understanding embodied by the Common Core, I don't see it as a tool for cheating beyond the solutions which math textbooks have been including for decades. Y

Have a suggestion for a featured App of the Week? Let us know. And don't forget to check out more great apps in our archive.

Title: Fyuse
Cost: Free
Platform: iOS and Android

There are so many different photo and video apps available for mobile devices that it can to tough to keep up with them, but Fyuse is one that caught my interest pretty quickly. Fyuse is one of the recent apps to take advantage of the built-in cameras on iOS and Android devices to allow users to create media that is a cross between a 3D image and a video. The end result is a unique sort of image that is fun to create and a great way to record an event or location.

Once you have downloaded the app, you have the option to create an account or login via Facebook or Twitter. After you are logged into the app, you can check out content created by other users, either through the homepage, which offers featured images, or by searching through images created with the app using hashtags or usernames. Both of these are nice resources for seeing what you can do with the app and offer inspiration for new users. You can also connect with users through the app or by finding friends from your Facebook or Twitter accounts.

All of these features are just the background for the true purpose of the app, which is capturing the details of the world around you. Creating an image requires you to press and hold the recording button to reveal four arrows, up, down, left, and right. You must carefully select which direction you will move your device because you can only move in a single direction while creating an image. While still holding the button, you then move slowly around the object or view that you want to record. This step requires a bit of a delicate and steady hand to ensure that you get a smooth image, but it isn’t much more difficult than recording a clear video with your device. When you are done, you simply release the button and tap the image in the lower right hand corner of your screen to preview your Fyuse image.

This is a fun new option for creating dynamic images and I think it is one that will be enjoyable for all ages. It is definitely worth checking out. You can see it in action in the video below.

Title:  Kong
Cost:  Free
Platform:  iOS and Android

When stories about Kong, a social media app devoted to selfie GIFs, started popping up in my news feed, I had some questions. Mostly of the "why?" and "really?" variety. I couldn't see how a network of moving selfies could possibly be interesting or worthwhile. But I'm here to tell you I was wrong. This thing is super fun.

Set up an account and you're introduced to the app through your home page, which starts as a grid of brightly colored boxes that are empty except for the top left square -- a live feed from your front-facing camera (the only camera Kong allows you to use at this time.) The other boxes will eventually fill up with the feeds of friends you add through your phone's contact lists or by following other users.

When you click the search box at the top of the screen, you're taken to the channels page, where you can search by hashtag for channels of interest or click on the featured channels listed below, such as #coffee, #highfive, #doubletake, or whichever channel is feeling the love at the moment.

Once you find a channel that you like, swipe left or right on your live feed (still at the top left of the screen) to access filters and special effects, or double tap your feed to add words, then shoot a short video of yourself by pressing and holding the shutter button at the bottom of the screen.  Tapping the arrow button adds your GIF to the channel and opens a box of saving and sharing options, of which there are plenty. The result is a collection of GIFs on a single topic, with a fun, Brady-Bunch-Opening-Credits sort of feel.

Kong's appeal is due in large part to some smart choices made by the developers, including the decision to allow only one GIF per person, per channel -- if you post another GIF to the same channel, your original post disappears. This keeps the channels fresh and free of spammers. They also made it easy to create your own channels, both public and private, by simply creating a hashtag no one else is using.

It may seem like a selfie social media app wouldn't necessarily lend itself to Library programs or services, but 15 minutes after introducing it to my Teen Advisory Board they were already devising ways to incorporate it into our After-Hours Party scavenger hunt and brainstorming ways we could use it with our book club. Thus definitively answering my initial, knee-jerk questions of "why?" (Because it's quick, original, fun, and surprisingly useful) and "really?" (YES!)

Title: Google Handwriting

Cost: Free

Platform: Android (4.0.3 or later)

Google Handwriting is an app that works as an alternate keyboard to give Android users access to data wells through your scribbles.

Apps like Penultimate and Evernote have long enable handwriting input for searching content, but Google is a more "full-featured" handwriting-to-digital-text tool.

The really exceptional thing about Google Handwriting is how exponentially more accurate the writing-to-text translations manage to be, however sketchy the writing, as demonstrated below:

Part of the reason for the prediction quality: Google's optical text recognition has fine-tuned through Google Book project. Predictably, you can add your feedback on the accuracy of the handwriting translation to their database, but the default leaves this in-app reporting off.

You can double-tap any datawell to activate the handwriting input. As you write, your words are translated dynamically into a field just above, with three predictions to choose between, in a continuous ribbon. A green arrow serves to "enter" your input, or your can touch to toggle between fields. The handwriting input option works especially well when paired with Google Keep, which provides an ample space to jot.

And Google Handwriting perhaps most intriguingly, allows you to draw emojis, predicated on your familiarity with emojis.

I can see Google Handwriting being of real utility for those with Samsung Note phablets as well as for those who never learned their QWERTY keys. But even for touch typists, it's good to experience the web through another input and, like playing around with voice control, provides a way to experience web searching and navigation from a different perspective.

Check out more great Apps in our App of the Week archive. Have an idea for an App you'd like us to spotlight? Let us know.

Title: Adobe Slate
Cost: Free
Platform: iOS 8 or later

Adobe Slate is the latest in Adobe's collection of free apps for iPads. (Adobe Voice was reviewed here in May of 2014.) With Slate it's possible to create professional looking visual documents - stories, how-tos, research projects, and more. Creative Commons photos are available within the app or users can make use of photos that taken themselves. The 10 minute screencast below provides an overview of what Adobe Slate is all about and how it works.


This app has a lot of uses for schools and libraries. Teens can create magazines using their own photos. The magazines can be totally visual or include text along with the images. As shown in the screencast examples there are opportunities for using the app as a way to present research and/or creative writing. Adobe Slate also provides the chance to talk about how stories are told with images and text combined and how selection of images can have an impact on the storytelling. With the ability to add and change copyright information, you can use that app feature to talk with teens about intellectual property and ownership.

Stories created with Adobe Slate can be embedded on web pages once it is uploaded to the Adobe site.

Name: Green Screen by Do Ink
Platform: iOS, compatible with iPad
Cost: $2.99

While digital media labs complete with green screens, cameras, computers and software may be out of reach for many libraries, creating composite photos and videos with your teens doesn't have to be. I set out a few weeks ago to find a free or low-cost green screen option and have been fortunate. After testing several chroma key apps, Green Screen by Do Ink is the one I keep coming back to for flexibility and user friendliness. I had begun by looking for free apps, and quickly discovered that I could either pay up front for green screen capabilities, or download free apps that include "in-app purchases." In-app purchases meant paying to unlock the chroma key tool or to get rid of an obtrusive watermark that rendered the free version essentially useless. I also discovered in one case that the developers' definition of green screen did not match my own (it was basically a $4.99 masking tool, something that comes included in many photo editing apps). With no advertisements or watermarks, Green Screen's $2.99 cost is worthwhile.

Originally debuting in October 2013, Green Screen has undergone several updates including bug fixes and recently added features that let you crop, scale and rotate source images. Video projects can also now be saved to Dropbox and Google Drive for easy archival.

Designed and tested to be kid and classroom friendly, Green Screen comes pre-loaded with a tutorial video starring a very enthusiastic grade-school-aged girl. Teens might laugh at this video, but it provides a good introduction to the tools and controls. It's also completely editable. Depending on the skill-levels of your teens, you may want to skip watching the video, and jump right into playing around with it. A potential first project might be to challenge them to create their own introduction tutorial using a mix of prerecorded and live footage.

Despite the simplicity of its design, Green Screen offers a full range of features. You can record live images and video using the iPad's camera, and also import prerecorded videos, photos, and artwork. The scrollable timeline allows you to add an unlimited number of sources, move them around, and trim as needed. Images can also be rotated, scaled and cropped. Finished projected are easily rendered into MOV or MP4 files for sharing on youtube and other places. Green Screen also does a couple of things that I didn't see in the other apps I tested. One: It allows you to combine up to three image layers at a time. The other apps I tried only allow two. Two: The chroma filter (which can be turned on and off for each layer) uses a full-spectrum color picker, so that you can effectively key out any background color that you have available. I tested it using a reddish octopus graphic in front of the blue-green wall in my poorly lit office, and found that I could easily key out the wall (minus a couple of pesky shadows, which I later cropped out).

This app definitely rewards a little pre-planning and practice when it comes to recording and putting together a video project. I found the timeline controls to be a little clunky; a combination of tapping, holding and swiping is needed to move the clips around. It also took some trial and error to figure out how to set the automatic stop timer on video and image recording. I discovered that the timer is necessary to keep the still images you add to the timeline from stretching on into what seems to be infinity.

Even with these quirks, I found the learning curve to be fairly gentle. Teens could get the hang of it and create an original project of their own over the course of a 1.5 to 2 hour program. Setting them loose in the library with an iPad and a prop or two would give them the opportunity to experiment with different background colors and lighting situations, and set up a discussion afterwards about what background colors work best and why green might be the standard color choice. However you decide to use it, Green Screen has plenty of potential for teen-led programs (YALSA Teen Programming Guideline 3) that support connected learning (YALSA Teen Programming Guideline 4).

Green Screen can also be purchased as part of a creativity bundle along with Animation & Drawing by Do Ink for $5.99. It is only available for iPad at this time.

For more app recommendations, check out the' YALSA App of the Week Archive. If you have an app you think we should review,' let us know!

Name: StoryCorps.me
Platform: iOS and Android
Cost: Free

Several years ago, YALSA Blog covered the original StoryCorps app, but recently StoryCorps released a new app that offers some great new features. The app allows you to create an account, but you can also proceed without an account if you would prefer. Once you make that decision, you can get started with your first oral history right away.

When you get started with your first interview, you can opt to either start recording right away or prepare your interview questions in advance. If you pick the option to prepare your interview first, you are offered several tips on best practices for conducting this time of interview. These are very approachable for those who are new to interviewing and cover the basic protocols that should be followed in a way that lets novices feel like experts very quickly. You are then prompted with the three preparatory steps for the interview: customizing a question list, selecting who you will interview, and setting the length of your interview.

When you are setting up your list of questions, you can choose from suggested questions on a variety of topics ranging from family heritage to serious illness or you can write your own questions. Adding one of the suggested questions to your interview is as simple as clicking the plus icon and once you have selected several questions, you can view your list and reorder the questions to suit your needs. You can also save your questions and then go back to editing them later.

The next step on the app is setting who your interview subject will be and this is the only one of the three steps that requires an account. Once you have done this, you can then set the length of your interview. The app allows for interviews of 15 minutes, 30 minutes, or 40 minutes in length, but you can also say that you don’t know how long the interview will last if you would prefer, though it is worth noting that the app will stop recording after 45 minutes. Even if you select an interview length shorter than 45 minutes, you can continue recording for longer, so this step doesn’t have to be too much cause for concern.

Using the app, you can set up multiple interviews before you record any of them, which can be useful if you are planning a single event where you will interview multiple people or if you are using a single (perhaps library-owned) device for multiple users. As you are conducting your interview, you will be presented with the questions one at a time and can swipe through them at your own pace. Once you have finished your interview, you will be prompted to take a photo with your interview subject. You will then be given the option to share it on the StoryCorps website and archive it with the Library of Congress for posterity. You can also delete your interviews after completing them if you would like.

This app has a lot of potential for use in library programming. Whether you want to plan a Bring Your Own Device workshop to introduce teens with iOS and Android devices to this app and the best practices for conducting oral history interviews or you want to host an on-site interviewing event to help teens find mentors and become more civically involved, this free app is a great way to achieve several of the goals in YALSA Teen Programming Guidelines 4.0. Because the app allows users to have so much autonomy in creating their interview questions and selecting who to interview, it is a great opportunity to bring in all types of teens with all sorts of interests and they can each make a contribution to local history while learning how to conduct interviews. The app is already very useful, but if you find bugs as you use it, feel free to submit comments; it is in public beta and they are actively soliciting input from users.

Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know. And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog's App of the Week Archive.

Title: Lark

Cost: Free

Platform: iOS

Many youth services specialists will be familiar with Lark's parent site, Storybird, which enables dazzling yet simple drag-and-drop digital storytelling. Like Fridegpoems by Color Monkey, Lark, Storybird's Poetry app, is a digital incarnation of a refrigerator magnet poetry set, inspiring creativity within a finite vocabulary set as you move and reorder the words it generates over an image.

A lightning bolt icon launches a new project. You can browse art in a gallery, search by keyword or choose a random different background or word bank by swiping left. Many of the images, alternatingly fantastical and almost unbearably poignant, look as if they were cribbed from vintage picture books. You can also use a color picker to change the colors of the words on screen for optimal artistic impact. The overall effect is quite attractive and quickly achieved.

You can post your creations to the shared database, save it to your picture roll, and Lark has the usual social sharing components built in, too.  If you're not feeling inspired, you can browse poems, follow those you find compelling, and "heart" or comment on poems you like. You can also block and unblock users, though the controlled vocabulary makes it pretty problem-free for school use, but registration through verified email is required.

Lark is designed for iOS 7 and is compatible with iPhone 4s and later. It isn't available for Android devices or optimized for iPad. Featuring it on public devices would make for an easy drop-in program for National Poetry Month, or working with a group to generate a poem with time constraints could prove a fun contest.

Have a suggestion for an app we should highlight? Let us know. And don't miss the hundreds of other great apps in our Archive.

Name:  Opinion
Platform:  iOS
Cost:  Free

With shows like Serial and Welcome to Night Vale, podcasts continue to gain popularity with teens and those of us who work with them, but the options for creating our own podcasts require more time and technical wizardry than some of us possess. Opinion is the app that will eliminate any remaining excuses to jump into the fray.

Two screens and three buttons are just about all it takes to record your podcast.  Hit the red button at the top of the home screen to record audio, which shows up as a vertical sound wave that stops when you hit the button a second time.  Tap on the sound chunk you just created and you're taken to the second screen where you can check the flow of your sound bites, edit out the dead air and exorbitant "um"s with the touch of the scissors icon, or get rid of an unsuccessful segment by selecting the trash bin.

A trip back to the home page allows you to add music and sound effects from your device's library, rearrange any of your sound wave segments, and export your finished product to SoundCloud, email, or text message.

While Opinion may not be a professional-grade recording platform -- there are no options to layer audio or work on more than one project at a time, and you're stuck with a 10-minute recording limit until you pay $3.99 for an upgrade -- it is fast, free, and so easy to use it's sure to inspire the podcast fans in your midst to become podcast producers.

Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know. And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog's App of the Week Archive.

Name: OneShot
Platform: iOS
Cost:Free

Imagine that one afternoon after school the teens you work with are hanging out at the library reading articles of personal interest on their iPhones. All of a sudden one of the teens reads something that she has to let others know about. So, she decides she wants to Tweet the link. But, really what she wants to do is highlight one particular sentence in the article for her friends to read. She could copy and paste the text into Twitter, but maybe that makes her Tweet too long to post easily. But then she realizes, I have OneShot on my phone and I can take a screenshot of the part of the article that I want to point out, highlight the text on the screenshot, and then add that image to the Tweet. So, that's what she does.

I think that story highlights that OneShot is a simple idea and a simple app that does one thing really well - allows Twitter users to use screenshots in Tweets and enables highlighting in those screenshots (OneShot also makes it possible to crop screenshots and add a background color). It's one of those apps that before I used it I didn't realize I needed it. I was making due with the tools I had - copy and paste, ordinary screenshots, and so on.

Here is an example of a recent Tweet that I posted using OneShot to highlight a portion of a web page:

ICYMI @yalsa shark bowl is ur chance 2 lvl up a #digitalliteracy idea get 2 #alaac15 & win cash & tech pic.twitter.com/EYKKJ1YOIv

— Linda W Braun (@lbraun2000) March 3, 2015

At the moment the app only works on iPhones. The developers say that a universal version should be available any day now which means that it will be available for iPad as well. I can see that the iPad version could be very useful for teens and staff who are reading articles and web pages on their personal and/or library provided devices.

I know that OneShot probably seems like just an extra tool that is OK to have but not a necessity. But, if the teens you work with, your colleagues, or yourself take part in Tweeting that includes links to articles and other web content, try it out. I think you'll be happy that you did.

Title: Post-it Plus

Cost: Free, with in-app purchases

Platform: iOS

From LiveScribe to Moleskine, there have been a number of visions on how to capture the physical process of notetaking in a digital incarnation. Like many with a love for stationary, I had played around with the digital sticky note applications, but when a student raved about the Post-it app, it sounded like something more than a mere yellow placeholder.

There are two methods for creating notes. You can add them with a click, as you might in decades-old Windows programs, or your can photograph your actual physical notes. The in-app photography mechanism is among the easiest I've seen, coaching you on light levels and holding your device steady. But it's what happens when you take that picture that sets this app apart.

In contrast with Evernote and its associated applications, Post-it Plus is a little different: it doesn't attempt to make sense of your writing. Each note remains its own image, which can be dragged and dropped into intuitive order. But you can write more on the notes, or even use a typewriter gadget for longer, more legible input, or even delete it altogether after you have capture or refined the sentiment.

Your scanned notes retain their original colors, but a $2 in-app purchase gives you access to a rainbow's worth of post-it color options, which also make for fun organizational options. When you're done with your creation, you can share it in a range of file formats, depending on your needs.

Post-it Plus is a possible solution for students, teachers, and librarians, or anyone else looking for digital brainstorming and storyboarding tools that can be output in a variety of file formats. The transformation of the fixed physical into the mutable digital is bound to give you a little thrill, too.

Check out more Apps of the Week in our Archive. Know an app you'd like to see featured? Let us know.

Name: Space Age: A Cosmic Adventure
Price: $3.99
Platform: iOS

Combining 8-bit-style graphics and a mysterious foreign planet, Space Age by Big Bucket offers players an opportunity to explore a new world while trying to solve puzzles and find a way home. Set in 1976, the game follows a small band of interplanetary explorers who are exploring Kepler-16. On the planet, they find a variety of alien life forms, including plants and insects, but no intelligent life. Or so they assume. Navigate a map to accomplish missions, move back in time to learn more about how the characters came to be on Kepler-16, and try to solve the mysteries of this alien environment.

This game gives you control over a variety of characters and an opportunity to explore a planet with only small segments of the landscape revealed at a time. The game alternates between exploration, puzzles, and characters’ interactions, which can range from fighting to conversing. The levels vary significantly so that some are easy to complete and others are more challenging, which I found made the game more engaging and kept it from being too short. Though I played Space Age on an iPad, it is also available for iPhones and I think that it would translate well to the smaller screen, though the images are more impressive when larger.

Space Age will appeal to video gamers who fondly recall 8-bit arcade games from their childhood, but it will also appeal to teens and tweens who like games that bring together appealing artwork and compelling storytelling to create an immersive experience. The puzzles will challenge even those who play a lot of mobile games, though the app remains approachable for those who are not dedicated gamers. Unlike many mobile games, I feel that Space Age manages to carefully walk this line between “serious” and “casual” gamers, in a way that I think will make this a popular game. If all of this intrigues you, you can learn more about the game by watching the trailer below.

Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know. And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog's App of the Week Archive.

Name: Adventure Time Game Wizard
Platform: iOS, Android
Cost: $4.99    

Fans of Cartoon Network's Adventure Time series can choose any number of games from just about any app store in order to continue their adventures in the Land of Ooo, but the show's latest app, Game Wizard, gives players the power to design levels of game play as well.

At it's core, Game Wizard is a typical 2D sidescroller game that follows favorite characters from the show as they collect coins, battle villains with their awesome swordplay, and jump from level to level.

However, the magic truly happens when players exhaust the pre-installed levels and turn to the Create mode.  The app walks creators through downloading and printing a tutorial kit and basic grid paper to get started, at which time they use the provided design vocabulary (plus signs for coins, wavy lines for moving blocks, etc.) and a ruler (or steady hand) to draw their game levels.

These pages can then be scanned into the app using the device's camera where they can be easily edited and multiple pages can be stitched together.  The new levels can then be shared with the public for others to play.

While Game Wizard is technically aimed at kids and tweens, the game design aspect and continued popularity of the show with teens makes it a fun addition to any library's STEAM programming.

Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know. And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog's App of the Week Archive.

Name: True Legends
Price: Free
Platform: iOS

True Legends is a very interesting and, fortunately, free app that I can best describe as a combination of a short story and an animated short. The app first asks users whether they would like to use the app in Hebrew or English. Once you have made a language selection, you are presented with an opening screen that looks very much like the front cover of a book with credits for the writer (Alex Epstein) and the illustrator (Tsach Weinberg).

At this point, the app also demonstrates the swiping motion that is required to advance through the story. Rather than turning pages, users swipe as if zooming in to trigger motion and animations throughout the story. Sometimes these animations are, in fact, zooming in to see details, but they also include movement and scenery changes. While there is only one path through the story, this does add an interactive quality to the app and makes for an impressive user experience. The soft and meditative music that plays throughout also adds an immersive quality to the app.

The story, and therefore the app, are quite brief, but the beauty of the artwork and the haunting and fable-like nature of the story makes up for that, at least for me. In the end, I think this app is an interesting example of how the app format can allow artists to change the way that they present stories and artwork and it is an example of the types of innovations that we will hopefully see more of in the future. Especially given the fact that it is free, I think this is a great app to load on library iPads for demonstration purposes or to show to those who are disappointed that ebooks are so frequently simply text presented on an electronic device.

Have a suggestion for App of the Week? Let us know. And find more great Apps in the YALSA Blog's App of the Week Archive.